


Sucker

by Captainmintyfresh



Series: Airplanes [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Remix, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Theos POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 10:15:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15928346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captainmintyfresh/pseuds/Captainmintyfresh
Summary: Airplanes from Theo's POV(But i'm drunk so please feel free not to take this into airplanes 'canon')





	Sucker

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S FINALLY HERE

Theo knew he’d had friends before, that once upon a time he would have died for Scott and Stiles. He remembered it, the nights screaming and elbowing each other as they played on the psp, the sigh Melissa would give when the trio would turn up on her doorstep, covered in dirt and stomachs rumbling as Scott would ask if they could stay for dinner. He remembered, too much sometimes. But that world, a world where he had friends, was a literal lifetime ago.

It was pathetic really, Theo thought as he eyed Liam standing in the decimated school library staring almost blindly at the carnage, that the closest thing he now had to a friendship was Liam. Liam who, at the best of times, wasn’t threatening to kill him and only breaking his nose.

His eyes found Stiles despite himself. The nagging what ifs littering his brain even as he tried to crush them down and tell himself that they’d have forgotten about him, even if he stayed, that a year of friendship didn’t mean that he’d have fit into their lives.

Even as he told himself  he knew it was probably a lie, if there was one thing that Stiles and Scott were it was loyal. If he’d have stayed...If he hadn’t let the dread doctors convince him to go then he’d still have ended up in the same place, only perhaps he would have been helping Scott all but carry stiles out of the decimated library. He’d have been a real part of the pack, not just an add on no one really wanted there.

Theo straightened his shoulders as Scott paused in his attempts to help Stiles hop towards the exit, gaze moving to Liam as his mouth opened, ready to try and jolt the boy from the haze he seemed to be stuck in. Liams fingers twitched at his sides, like he was still waiting for the anuk-ite to get back up and attack again.

“Deal with Theo said, voice low. “I can drive Liam home.”  Scott and Stiles’s heads snapped to him, for once the latter making no sarcastic comments. He could almost taste Scott’s hesitation as he looked from Liam, to Theo, to the stairs. A gulp.

Theo’s finger twitched against his side, once, twice. Scott’s eyes fell back to him, grip tightening around Stiles before he gave a short nod.Theo was sure by the incredulous look Stiles gave he was ready to protest, and would have were it not for Scott already walking again, hauling his hobbling friend through the doors.

Theo listened to the click of the door closing, the shuffle of footsteps as the pack made their way from the school. He let his eyes move back over the library. Books were spread across the floor, their pages stained crimson and torn. The shelves creaked around them, whispering the stories of the battle that had taken places amongst them. The metallic scent of blood choked the room, the harsh burn of gunpowder and the lingering nausea inducing roll of terror. His eyes fell to the steps, blood dribbling over them like slinkeys. He remembered Scott, but not the rumbling of their stomachs and the bitten of laughter of children but the growl of his voice as he’d pointed out what Theo had for so long been trying to ignore.

He remembered the hot blood as it dripped off of his fingers and he let Scott fall to the floor, hoping he’d never get back up.

Liam’s breath hitched and Theo was drawn back to him. His shoulders trembled, his body swaying like it would give up on him any second. The blank haze still swimming in his eyes made it look like he was sleepwalking. Theo dug his keys from his pocket, swinging them around his finger.

He knew that if someone was sleepwalking you should leave them be, that waking them up was meant to be dangerous. He wasn’t sure if it was the same for whatever was making Liam’s eyes look so dead but he knew what it was like to be trapped in a nightmare and there was no world in which what Liam was looking at could be part of a nice dream.

He’d wished, back when he was in what he could only describe as hell, for someone to save him. For Scott or Stiles or anyone to help him, to get him out. He knew he didn’t deserve to be saved, but, in his opinion, he didn’t deserve the sword either, no one did.

And then it happened, Liam dragged him from the ground. It wasn’t how he’d pictured, in a few lonely moments in the morgue draw where someone would help him because they wanted him around, or maybe even because they felt bad for putting him there. Instead it was because he could be useful, it was with the threat of getting sent back if he put a toe out of line and without even an inch of remorse.

Even so, Liam had gotten him out. He knew once he would have loved it, to stand and watch someone who’d tortured him all but breaking, would have thrown out taunts to snap the last threw threads that seemed to be keeping Liam standing and reveled in it as he watched him crumble.

But now the idea of leaving Liam in his own personal hell even one as tepid as the sight before him left nausea curling in his gut.

“You coming?” Theo asked, voice edging on too loud. It worked, Liam’s head snapping towards him, eyes wide and breath stuttering for a second. Theo stared right back, meeting Liam’s unfocused haze with casual indifference. When Liam’s eyes skittered over the room again it was clear what he was looking for. “Scott needed to get Stiles to Melissa, idiot twisted his ankle.” Theo said, lips twitching into an amused smirk despite himself. It hadn’t even been in battle that Stiles twisted his ankle, but after, when he’d taken a step and slid on a page from a book. “I said I could give you a lift home.”

“Right.” Liam hummed, voice hollow as his eyes once again found the anuk-ite. Theo pushed down the twist of worry beginning to coil in his stomach as he pushed off the wall. He ignored Liam’s shock as his hand landed on his shoulder, just focused on steering him out of the room, and hopefully away from his nightmares, as quickly as possible. Liam was pliant under the hand on his shoulder, letting Theo lead him towards the truck without even the usual cursory grumble of protest. It was something that usually Theo would have been happy with. The idea that perhaps Liam trusted him enough not to ask a litany of questions about their destination, or shake off his hand, but as it was, whenTheo started the car and his eyes shifted to Liam looking almost frozen in the passenger seat he knew that Liam wasn’t silent because the gap between them had been bridged,  he trusted him anymore. He wondered, for a moment, if Liam even realised who he was with.

“You okay?” Theo asked.

“I’m tired.” Liam said quietly. Theo kept his gaze on the road swallowing down any trace of genuine concern.

“Poor little Beta, did the fight knock you out?” he hummed. “Don’t worry, you’ll be back to your regular bedtime now that-”

“No. I’m _tired._ ” Liam said, oh so illuminatingly. “I’m...I’m sixteen, I shouldn’t be this tired, should I?” Theo’s eyes jumped to Liam before he could stop himself. It was a feeling he knew all too well. The kind that had sent him with the dread doctors, when his lungs would ache and his parents would scream and he’d wish, for a moment, that he hadn’t had his inhaler on him. It was something he’d learnt stamp down when he was with the Dread Doctors, when he could hear the scream of their latest experiments echoing and his chest felt like it was going to concave as he realised that this was his life. This would always be life. When regret would threaten to consume him and he’d dig his claws into his thighs until the pain drowned it all out. The screams, the regret, the ‘what ifs’.

_I’m tired._

It was such a simple phrase. Seven letters, nothing big, a quiet admission that could be so innocent and yet, said with the right tone could bring the world, or at least someone’s, to a stop.

 _I’m tired._ It echoed in his mind, bouncing around and jostling memories he’d rather forget.

Theo licked his lips, finger tapping at the wheel.

“This feels like the kind of conversation you should maybe have with someone el-”

“This isn’t what i meant! I didn’t want this! I just wanted to stop being so angry and instead I become a werewolf.” Theo almost smiled at the admission.

It was easy, he thought, to want something and have that turned against you. Theo had wanted control, of his life, of his freaking too weak lungs and he’d got it, in a way, but at the time he hadn’t realised to have that he’d have to give up everything else. The few friends he had, his family, even his life.

It was only ten year later that he’d figured out how bad a deal he’d made. With Tara’s hand on his leg and the McCall pack watching, unblinking, as he was dragged into hell.

He’d wanted power, and he’d got it, but it was fleeting, it was a glimpse at a life that, really, wasn’t worth it.

“We just killed someone and-” Liam started. Theo knew that he was the wrong person to talk to. That Liam could get better advice from pretty much anyone other than the boy who’d taken all the wrong turns in his life. But he couldn’t help himself, not when Liam’s chemo signals were leaking unjust remorse.

“Something.” Theo corrected, because Liam may be a pain in the ass but he was good and Theo knew he may not be the best person to judge morals on but even he knew that stopping something that would have killed at least everyone in the town wasn't a bad thing. It was a necessary evil. “It was a monster, it wasn’t-”

“We’re monsters too. Maybe we’re fighting on the first side but we’re still...We still killed it, we still scare people.” Theo swallowed at Liams words, finger tapping on the wheel. For so long he’d longed to be blanketed under a ‘we’ and yet, now, when finally he was put in the same category as Liam and the pack it left his skin crawling, because he shouldn’t be, not this time, not like this. Not when Liam was calling them monsters as if anything he had ever done was on the same level as the horrors Theo had inflicted.

“I don’t want people to be scared of me.” Liam said, and once again, it felt like Theo’s own words were coming out of Liam’s mouth, misplaced and wrong because people shouldn’t be scared of Liam. “I don’t want to have to fight anymore. I don’t want to have to be talked down from killing people when I get angry. I don’t want the fate of this town resting on my shoulders! My girlfriend left and my friends almost died and people _did_ die and I just-” Liam came to a stop, sucking in a breath that rattled so hard Theo couldn’t help but think it must have hurt to draw. “It’s like ever since I found out about my IED the hits just keep coming and I’m tired of it. I want something to change for the better, but everytime I think something's going right-” the sigh that Liam let out seemed to Theo through the car. “I know I need to be here.” he whispered. I know that I should be here, that it’s my responsibility to help but I just...I need a break…” Theo pulled to a stop outside Liam’s house, eyes drawing from the road to Liam, scrubbing uselessly at the blood desecrating his skin.

He was used to blood, had been used to it for too long and yet, on Liam’s skin, glistening and pale against the moonlight seeping through the windows the blood looked too dark, misplaced, like it had missed its mark by a mile and landed on someone who never should have been tainted with the horrors of the night.

“Then have a break.” Theo said.

“I can’t. No one gets a break in Beacon hills.

“Then leave.

“I can’t just-”

“I don’t mean forever.” Theo pushed, before Liam could come up with a hundred petty arguments to turn it down, probably just because Theo was the one to suggest it. “You’re still in school, idiot, you have to come back eventually. But you could always get out of town for a while. No one's coming for your pack right now, Scott has Argent, and the Hales and Stilinski to keep the town safe for a while. If you wanted a break now’s probably the best time.” The more he spoke the better the idea seemed, the more likely it was to help. He wondered what would have happened, if someone had told him to get out of town, if he’d been able to just leave, to get away from the shouting of parents and the weariness Beacon Hills had settled into his bones before he met the dread doctors, maybe, maybe he would have been smart enough to turn them away. “You said you wanted something to change. Sorry to break it to you but if you want to change you have to do something. So do it. Pack a ba, say sayonara to Scott and-”

“Drive.” Liam said, voice hollow, void, like a robot had taken control. He looked up, meeting Theo’s gaze. His eyes were too alive for his voice. Shining with hope and wide with desperation.

“What?” The said eloquently. Liam straightened his shoulders, a mimicry of his usual confidence.

“You’re right, for once.” His voice still sounded wrong, too detached, emotionless for someone who was ruled by emotions but the petty jab still had Theo rolling his eyes. “If i want change I gotta do something. So drive.”

“See, I wasn’t saying I’ll be your chauffeur, it was more buy a bus tic-”

“I can’t go in there.” Liam pleaded. Even as he said it Theo could see the beta’s resolve crumbling. His eyes skimmed past him, to the house, a warm glow came through the window. He could hear the movement inside, Liam’s mom laughing, soft and light.

He wanted to say it made no sense, wanted to tell Liam to get the hell out of the car. That running off with something supernatural wouldn’t end well. That it didn’t for him. He had a family inside, and by the sounds of it not one like Theo’s had been, where every conversation was laced with tension, an argument just begging to break out, but somewhere happy, somewhere where people cared about him, people who’d worry if he disappeared into the night.

Theo didn’t have enough appendages to count all the reasons that agreeing to Liam’s request and starting the car was a bad idea.  But he remembered what it was like to have friends. To have people he’d do anything for, to be wanted. He remembered. Too well.

And for a moment, as the light in Liam’s eyes begun to die, back to the apathetic nothing that suited the voice he’d been using, didn’t want to just remember it, he wanted to have it.

The truck rumbled to life. Theo kept his eyes on the road as he pulled away from Liam’s. He could feel the beta’s eyes on him. Curiosity mixed in with hope, he squashed down the voices telling him to stop the car, to shove Liam out and stop any preluding drama before it had even begun. His finger tapped against the wheel, once, twice.

“I expect to be paid for being the chauffeur.” Theo joked lamely. The silence after his words was vast, stretching on and on like a rubber band being pulled to the breaking point. Almost every instinct in his body was telling him to turn around, to stop.  But there was one that said different, the same piece of him that made bile rise in his throat when he saw blood on Liam’s hands, the one that brought a smile to his lips whenever Liam said something spectacularly dumb.

And maybe it wasn’t louder that everything telling him it was a bad idea, but, he’d listened to his gut before, done what he wanted rather than what he thought he should and that had ended in hell, literally.

So he ignored it, let his foot stay on the gas and the band pull tighter as Liam barely breathed in the seat beside him.

“You are now leaving beacon hills.” Liam said, his voice barely louder than the whisper of a leaf falling.

The band broke, the tension of the car snapping and leaving Theo relaxing in his seat as his foot pressed harder on the gas.

They were out. He was out, and this time there were no dread doctors leading the way and he hadn’t left a trail of bodies, or at least, no innocent ones.

“We have now left Beacon hills.” Theo said. He could see Liam’s lips twitching into a smile from the corner of his eyes, the truth that they were free, if only for moment, settling on him. “Where too?”

“I always wanted to see the grand canyon.”

**Author's Note:**

> YOU GUYS READY FOR ANOTHER 20OK OF WONDERING WHEN I'LL UPDATE THEN GETTING SOME BULLSHIT PINING INSTEAD OF A KISS, THEN STRAP IN BECAUSE IT'S COMING VERY VERY SLOWLY.


End file.
